If believers are right in the significance they claim for religion, how can they tolerate uncertainties, or preach a Gospel of good news if they are uncertain what they are to talk about? Is religious conviction something which no honest man can profess? Do believers in fact speak with one voice? These are some of the questions that prompted this book, which embodies the F.D. Maurice lectures delivered at King's College London in 1961. It discusses topics that were causes of as much concern to Maurice as they are in our own day: 'eternal' punishment; Christian social duty; the problem of subscription ex animo to Articles. Professor Ramsay argues that it is reasonable to be sure in religion while being tentative in theology. In the course of his discussion he compares Maurice and Newman in relation to their views on theological certainty, and also considers the question whether the time has come for revision of the Thirty-nine Articles.

These two key ideas in the Christian understanding of man are taken together because each makes the same sort of claim, appealing to a situation not restricted by what is observed in sense experience. This does not make reasonable talk about ideas any easier--in fact, Professor Ramsey constantly shows himself as aware of the charge that all talk about them is meaningless. In language free from jargon and with many opposite and amusing illustrations, the philosophy of this enjoyable book is of the kind to appeal to a generation grown weary of metaphysics, and it is successful in throwing new light on some very old problems. Here is a book by a leading Oxford philosopher written for a wide public.

In this book, Professor Ramsey attempts to show how the concern of contemporary philosophy with language has implications for theology--its claims and apologetic, its problems and controversies. He argues that, far from being necessarily irreligious, logical empiricism provides us with a tool that can be of the greatest service to theology, making possible, between philosophy and theology, not only a new cooperation but a new venture altogether.